The Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC) is pleased to launch its 25th Annual Short Prose Competition for Emerging Writers, which invites Canadian writers to submit a piece of fiction or nonfiction of up to 2,500 words in the English language that has not previously been published in any format. A $2,500 prize will be awarded to the winner, and the entries of the winner and finalists will be submitted to three Canadian magazines for consideration. The deadline for entries is February 15, 2018.

The Union initiated the Short Prose Competition in 1993 in honour of its 20th anniversary. The Competition aims to discover, encourage, and promote new writers of short prose. “Over its twenty-five-year history, the Short Prose Competition has served as a springboard to a successful writing career,” notes Executive Director John Degen. “A number of winners and finalists have gone on to publish many books and join the Union’s ranks.”

The Union is proud to announce an esteemed group of jurors for the Competition:

Journalist and author Deborah Campbell is the latest recipient of the Writers’ Union’s Freedom to Read Award, which recognizes work that is passionately supportive of free expression. Her 2016 book, A Disappearance in Damascus: A Story of Friendship and Survival in the Shadow of War, won both the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction and the Hubert Evans Prize, and was named a New York Times Editor’s Choice.

Author Melanie Mah won the 2017 Trillium Award for her debut novel, The Sweetest One, which tells the story of a seventeen-year-old’s debilitating fear brought on by belief in a family curse that dooms her and her siblings to untimely deaths after venturing beyond their small town. Originally from Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, and now based in Toronto, she is a graduate of the University of Guelph Creative Writing MFA program.

Playwright, poet, and essayist Daniel David Moses is a Delaware from the Six Nations lands on the Grand River near Brantford, Ontario. His play The Indian Medicine Shows won the James Buller Memorial Award, and his play Almighty Voice and His Wife is the Canadian contribution to The Norton Anthology of Drama. He has published five poetry collections, one a CD, and his essays are collected in Pursued by a Bear: Talks, Monologues and Tales. He is a Professor in the Dan School of Drama and Music at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.

The Competition is open to Canadian citizens and residents who have had no more than one book published and who do not currently have a contract with a book publisher for a second book. Authors not published in book format are also eligible. Members of TWUC are not eligible to enter. The entry fee is $29per submission, and submissions are accepted online until 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time on February 15, 2018. The winner will be announced in late spring 2018. For complete rules and regulations, please go towww.writersunion.ca/short-prose-competition.

The 25th Annual Short Prose Competition is supported by Sure Print & Design.

The Writers’ Union of Canada is the national organization representing professional book authors. Founded in 1973, the Union is dedicated to fostering writing in Canada and promoting the rights, freedoms, and economic well-being of all writers. For more information, please visit www.writersunion.ca.